The NCP made up for its dismal performance in the urban hubs in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad where it won one seat each by making it with a flourish in the rural areas of the district. It bagged five seats out of the eight seats it contested in the 10 Assembly seats available. Congress won the other two.

The NCP won in Baramati, Ambegaon, Shirur, Khed-Alandi and Junnar seats in rural Pune while it could win only Wadgaonsheri in the city and Pimpri in the twin city. Daund went to NCP rebel Ramesh Thorat while Sena took Purandar and Maval went to BJP. In Indapur, Cooperatives minister Harshvardhan Patil of Congress won.

“We had won Daund last time but Thorat took it away from us this time. At least the seat did not go to a saffron party,” said NCP spokesperson Ankush Kakde. In Shirur, NCP’s Ashok Pawar defeated sitting MLA Baburao Pacharne by 7,567 votes.

In its traditional stronghold of Baramati, Ajit Pawar polled 1.28 lakh votes while state finance minister Dilip Walse Patil had 99,393 votes in Ambegaon - both on the high side.

Khed-Alandi and Junnar saw sitting MLAs Dilip Mohite and Vallabh Benke winning against Sena candidates Ashok Khandebarad and Asha Buchke respectively. Sena was hopeful of winning Junnar, but sitting MLA Benke won by a margin of 6,458 votes.

In Maval, a traditional BJP seat, NCP’s Bapurao Jayantrao Bhegde was beaten squarely by BJP candidate Sanjay Bhegde by 14,000 votes. In Purandar too, NCP candidate Digambar Durgade lost to Sena’s Vijay Shivtare by 23,000 votes.